Sig Sauer P320, a popular handgun with police, is firing on its own
20 points by martey 2 years ago | 31 comments- 4wsn 2 years agoFor what is self-labelled as an investigation, there's very little technical information. At the very least (in my limitedly qualified opinion) the main factor should be identified; were all the holsters in the reported incidents leather? The only acknowledgement of the topic is brief.
> as it might be in a warped holster or when a finger or object inadvertently brushes the trigger from its side.
> He added that accidental discharges can be caused by improper ammunition, worn holsters or foreign objects working their ways into the trigger guards.
If this occurred also with plastic holsters, then I'd be concerned. But, unsurprisingly, WP decided to not provide this basic information.
If they're all leather, yes. The holster is a critical part of the weapon system. If you're using a leather holster it has a far more limited lifespan than, say, a leather wallet. RTFM.
- jacobgorm 2 years agoThe worst part is the stigma surrounding misfires, with some people even losing their jobs. Danish military is also using this gun in the no-safety version, and have had several misfires. The blame always goes on the users, never the gun.
- AnonMessiah 2 years agoThere is no discharge of a round with a misfire, at least US terminology, misfiring is synonymous with failure to fire, it happens when the hammer / firing pin is released but the primer is not ignited. There is a stigma around unintentional discharges for a good reason, because it is almost always a _negligent_ discharge and not an _accidental_ discharge, if someone NDs I do not want them around me and a firearm.
- giraffe_lady 2 years agoThis is minute gun nerd semantics people outside that world don't recognize or care about this difference.
- slowhand09 2 years agoNah. There are lots of knowledgeable and precise people who speak of things with the amount of specificity required to communicate the important details.
- more_corn 2 years agoSometimes the specific technical terms for things is important. Especially in the case of a safety hazard.
- omniglottal 2 years agoAccurate word use is correct. Inaccurate word use is false. People care about true and false statements. Please only refer to your own beliefs, as your statment is patently false.
- AnonMessiah 2 years agoand?
- slowhand09 2 years ago
- jacobgorm 2 years agoYou're right I meant accidental discharges. Not a native English speaker, nor a gun nerd.
- AnonMessiah 2 years agoNo worries, I'm both, please don't hold it against me.
- AnonMessiah 2 years ago
- giraffe_lady 2 years ago
- digitalengineer 2 years agoIf I'm not mistaking some Sig P320 models come without a safety switch. However, one could, you know, not keep a round in the chamber, especially if there is no safety switch... So yeah, the users does carry some of the blame.
- lemcoe9 2 years agoIn general, handguns with active safety levers are considered less-safe than firearms without active safeties when being carried in proper holsters (ones where the trigger area is completely covered) because of the additional steps required to use the firearm when it is deployed. Having a pistol come out of the holster ready-to-fire is always going to be advantageous to having to remember to manipulate the safety lever, ensure the firearm is loaded, ensure the firearm is in-battery, etc. when the time comes.
- jstarfish 2 years ago> Having a pistol come out of the holster ready-to-fire is always going to be advantageous to having to remember to manipulate the safety lever,
Just like not wearing seatbelts is safer, since you get thrown clear of the wreck?
Officers get in waaaay more physical altercations than quick-draw duels at the OK Corral. Lack of safety switches is only more advantageous to the subjects they inevitably end up grappling with, who have one less step to deal with in removing the officer's service weapon and using it against them.
- jstarfish 2 years ago
- slowhand09 2 years agoYour finger is the safety. Glock pistols have never had a safety. They have no higher rate of negligent or accidental discharges than pistols with safeties. If you are qualified to carry, a round in the chamber is what saves your life. Racking the slide(improperly) to load a round is the number one cause of jams. Nervous people tend to "ride the slide" which is pulling it back, then easing it forward. It should snap forward to strip the round from the magazine and chamber it properly.
- dolni 2 years agoYou should probably read up on why carrying a gun without a round in the chamber is silly.
- giraffe_lady 2 years agoAre you expecting to get into a quick draw shootout at the walgreens or what.
- giraffe_lady 2 years ago
- lemcoe9 2 years ago
- AnonMessiah 2 years ago
- no-s 2 years agoI stressed over this and finally gave in and got a P365, which I tore down and measured various things to assure it wasn’t as naughty as a P320. I wouldn’t even carry (EDC) a nice Glock which some PD reverted to, because of the unfortunate possibility of inadvertent discharge when re-holstering. For the P320 there was no real visibility of the risk from a slight trigger movement - for the Glock you know anything that moves the trigger safety opens the envelope.
- tbihl 2 years agoWhere do you go to read up on this?
- lemcoe9 2 years agoProduct reviews, trigger specifications, and such. It really is just a matter of personal preference. Firearms like Glocks don't have "active safeties" where you enable/disable them with a lever, but they do have a variety of "inactive safeties" which prevent the firearm from discharging when dropped/rattled/whatever.
- no-s 2 years ago> Firearms like Glocks don't have "active safeties"
gosh, there’s always some argument about the defn of “safety” when discussing Glock. A Glock trigger has a little spring-loaded tab which is depressed when you hold your finger on the trigger. When it is visible the Glock can not fire. This they call a “safety”, seems a little sketch but ok, I get the point. There’s some other internal features backing it up, but the trigger is most obvious.
The P320 had an internal lock-out widget that would disengage when you pull the trigger a wee bit and a spring loaded sear (? do they call it that for strikers?) one trivial whack away from releasing even if the trigger was not pulled to the break (the expected release point). I would call that absurdly wrong. The upgrade fixed this similarly to the P365.
The P365 has a similar lock-out widget to the P320 (they call it an internal safety in the manual), but it doesn’t disengage until the trigger is pulled into the break. The “striker” has a tab on it which is blocked to that point by the widget. You can disassemble it all and measure the distances the parts move to release, but I actually looked at a SolidWorks 3d model someone in the aftermarket industry shared with me and verified my pistol had the same dimensions at a critical point. I think if the striker tab or the widget broke it could fail silently. I check it about weekly or less.
- no-s 2 years ago
- lemcoe9 2 years ago
- tbihl 2 years ago
- slowhand09 2 years agoWP is WP. They interviewed me once about firearms. They either misquoted or misunderstood everything we spoke about.
- Rebelgecko 2 years agoMy favorite WaPo article about guns was the one a few years ago where they talked about the dangers of assault weapons that shoot high powered silenceable sniper rounds like the Ruger 10/22. If a .22 is considered high power I'd love to know what they classify as low/medium.
- Rebelgecko 2 years ago
- Havoc 2 years agoReminds me of the smoking/cancer playbook. Dodge, deny & deflect no matter how obvious it is that there is a real problem
>No regulatory body has the power to investigate alleged defects or impose a mandatory recall of guns.
Whoever came up with that idea should probably be shot (intentionally)
- stonegray 2 years agoIf this is an actual problem, it’s not obvious to me. The fact that nobody’s been able to replicate this without pulling the trigger is concerning.
Having two redundant internal safety systems fail, and mysteriously fire seems so considerably less plausible than negligent discharge that I think anecdotal evidence isn’t enough.
- Havoc 2 years ago>The fact that nobody’s been able to replicate this without pulling the trigger is concerning.
That's what SIG is claiming. Yet lower in the article:
>A video released in August that year by a Texas gun store showed the gun firing consistently when dropped at certain angles. The impact caused the trigger to depress, the video showed.
Assuming negligence on an individual cases makes sense. Happens. When you've got a cluster of reports centered around one specific model and there is evidence of said model firing without trigger being pressed...that's a lot of smoke to be insisting there can't be a fire
- Havoc 2 years ago
- stonegray 2 years ago
- pinewurst 2 years ago
- whoiscroberts 2 years agoGlock 43X